Youngblood

Approximately thirty-three months of total noncommunication had done nothing to change the fact that Kat held the dubious honor of Taylor Sanger’s First Crush. Seeing her again—standing in the middle of the room that we would be sharing for months—drove that home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

It wasn’t that I’d never imagined Kat could show up at Harcote. I’d imagined that exact scenario approximately one zillion times, and I admit that on more than one occasion—okay, many times more than one—I’d been too weak to resist scrolling her socials. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know that she still wore her silky auburn hair long, and that in the right light it shone red, or that she had the same round cheeks that made the corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiled. But that had done nothing to prepare me for actually seeing Kat again, for how it felt when her hazel eyes, the irises threaded with green, blazed in absolute fury when she recognized me.

I’d seen her standing there and all of a sudden, I could feel the actual contours of my heart. It trembled in my chest like a frightened rabbit waiting to be killed. This must be how humans feel, was what I’d thought, right before they’re glamoured.

Katherine freaking Finn.

At my school.

In my house.

In my room.

The prospect of living with Evangeline had been about as attractive as cohabitating with a scorpion wearing a human skin suit, but this was, impossibly, so much worse.

She was beautiful, she was perfect, and she was with me. I shivered a little as I reached for her hand. Together, we jumped and plunged into the water.

“Oh my god, they were roommates!”

It wasn’t fair that I had to lose her again.

But at the same time, she wasn’t mine to lose. She never had been.

It was Taylor. It had always been Taylor. And I was going to tell her the second I saw her.

That she kept me a secret, and I’d talked myself into believing that I didn’t care, it was hotter that way.

How could Kat love me enough to try to make me feel better, even when she didn’t understand what was wrong, but still not love me?

Other than that I was, as ever, completely in love with her.